Would you believe me if I said the two boards above are actually one board, two years apart? Photo: Doug Falter
You’ve probably seen the news this past week of Doug Falter’s traveling surfboard that floated over 5,000 miles from Hawaii to the Philippines. It would be hard not to with The Guardian, CNN, and other major news outlets picking up the story. Which leads me to wonder, why are we so obsessed with this tale? We love coincidences, but even more so than that, I think it’s the human kindness aspect that people are thirsting for. As Doug told me, “With everything going on in the world right now…it’s nice to hear about something good for a change.”
For those unfamiliar with the basic details, two years ago, Doug lost his prized Lyle Carlson 10’6” big wave gun. “It’s wild because the leash didn’t even snap,” Doug said. “Somehow it just came unstrapped from my leg.” The currents at Waimea Bay are such that the board, instead of getting washed into shore, was swept out to sea. He posted all over social media, hoping the board might have washed into shore somewhere else on Oahu, maybe even somewhere else on the Hawai’ian Islands, but to no avail.
Fast forward to mid August of this year, and Doug’s shaper, Lyle reached out to him, saying his board had shown up in the Philippines. A fisherman found the board and sold it to his neighbor, Giovanne Branzuela. A teacher on the island of Sarangani, Giovanne hoped to learn surfing so he could bring the sport to his students. Lyle’s logo was still readable despite the extreme weathering, and curious as to where the board came from, Giovanne emailed Lyle, who told Doug his board had been found.
Doug was so stoked to have located his prized stick, the excitement was audible in his voice when he talked about seeing it again. He has since filled the ‘elephant gun’ hole in his quiver, but the board itself means a lot to him. “I caught the biggest waves of my life on that board and even managed to surf on the biggest day I’ve ever witnessed at Waimea Bay after the [2016] Eddie Aikau Big Wave contest,” he said.
Giovanne has offered to give Doug his board back, but for now Doug is just happy his board is in good hands. In return for the massive act of kindness by Giovanne to find him, Doug hopes to do for Giovanne what Giovanne hoped the board would do for him: teach him to surf. While the pandemic has kept any plans of actually going to the Philippines at bay, Doug is doing what he can from afar. He has set up a GoFundMe to gather surf supplies for Giovanne and his students, as there are no surf shops on the island to get the basics such as wax and leashes. Doug hopes to raise enough to purchase some durable foam-topped surfboards as well, planning on delivering them himself (and recovering his board) when the pandemic is over.
While much further south in the Philippines archipelago than the island of Siargo where world-famous reefbreak Cloud 9 is located, Doug thinks Sarangani and its neighboring islands hold potential as a spot that could get some swell. Similar to Siargo, Sarangani has plenty of exposure to the wide open Pacific, and in an archival photo Doug found, as well as in Google imagery of Olanivan, the nearby island where his board was actually found, waves can be seen breaking.Who knows? Perhaps Sarangani is the keeper of the world’s next great undiscovered wave.
